Doing Business 2018 is the 15th in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it.
... See More + This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Syrian Arab Republic. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulation and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 190 economies; for 2018 Syrian Arab Republic ranks 174. Doing Business measures aspects of regulation affecting 11 areas of the life of a business. Ten of these areas are included in this year’s ranking on the ease of doing business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency. Doing Business also measures features of labor market regulation, which is not included in this year’s ranking. Data in Doing Business 2018 are current as of June 1, 2017. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms of business regulation have worked, where and why.
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The combination of conflict, food insecurity, and displacement generates competing claims for financial resources that stretch the donors' ability to provide funding and the humanitarian organizations' capacity to provide social assistance.
... See More + The paper uses Receiver Operating Characteristic curves and related indexes to determine the optimal targeting strategy of a food voucher program for refugees. The estimations focus on the 2014 food vouchers administered by the World Food Programme to Syrian refugees in Jordan. The analysis uses data collected by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Based on a poverty model, Receiver Operating Characteristic curves are used to optimize coverage and leakage rates under budget constraints. The paper shows how policy makers can use these instruments to fine-tune targeting using coverage rates, budgets, or poverty lines as guiding principles to increase the overall efficiency of a program. As humanitarian organizations operate under increasing budget constraints and increasing demands for efficiency, the proposed approach addresses both concerns.
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The objective of the Damage Assessment (DA) of selected cities is to provide information onthe effects of the current crisis on population, physical infrastructure, and quality of servicedelivery in those cities.
... See More + It is a broad brush and remote-based exercise, drawing mostly onexisting secondary sources of information including satellite imagery, social media analytics,existing public information, and – whenever available – partner organizations’ data. Theassessment data is aggregated in a digital geospatial platform that allows for the collection,monitoring and regular updates of the damage information. This assessment has been conducted at three distinct times during the evolution of the crisis. Phase 1 was conducted in December 2014, Phase 2 in March 2016, and Phase 3 in February 2017. The first phase of the assessment established pre-crisis baseline data on assets and facilities, and estimated damages across six cities and six sectors as of December 2014. The second phase was an update of the December 2014 assessment, and provided a more recent snapshot of damages and quality of services as of March 2016 by using the baseline established in the first phase. The third phase updates the damage information of the second phase for three cities: Aleppo, Idlib and Hama.
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The Arab Spring protest marked the beginning of a new era in the Syrian Arab Republic in 2011. Minor public protests began almost immediately after the initial protests in Cairo in January 2011.
... See More + The first large demonstrations began two months later in March, and the following months saw a process of escalation as demonstrations spread and increased in size within the country. By the summer of 2011, the armed conflict was already unfolding. Now in its sixth year, the Syrian conflict remains active and is bringing much pain and tragedy on a daily basis. This study provides an assessment of the conflict's impact on economic and social outcomes in Syria as of early 2017. Conflicts destroy tangible and intangible assets and leave deep marks on a country's social fabric, culture, and collective memories. The Syrian conflict has quickly become a particularly harsh example of this.
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The Arab Spring protest marked the beginning of a new era in the Syrian Arab Republic in 2011. Minor public protests began almost immediately after the initial protests in Cairo in January 2011.
... See More + The first large demonstrations began two months later in March, and the following months saw a process of escalation as demonstrations spread and increased in size within the country. By the summer of 2011, the armed conflict was already unfolding. Now in its sixth year, the Syrian conflict remains active and is bringing much pain and tragedy on a daily basis. This study provides an assessment of the conflict's impact on economic and social outcomes in Syria as of early 2017. Conflicts destroy tangible and intangible assets and leave deep marks on a country's social fabric, culture, and collective memories. The Syrian conflict has quickly become a particularly harsh example of this.
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The Arab Spring protest marked the beginning of a new era in the Syrian Arab Republic in 2011. Minor public protests began almost immediately after the initial protests in Cairo in January 2011.
... See More + The first large demonstrations began two months later in March, and the following months saw a process of escalation as demonstrations spread and increased in size within the country. By the summer of 2011, the armed conflict was already unfolding. Now in its sixth year, the Syrian conflict remains active and is bringing much pain and tragedy on a daily basis. This study provides an assessment of the conflict's impact on economic and social outcomes in Syria as of early 2017. Conflicts destroy tangible and intangible assets and leave deep marks on a country's social fabric, culture, and collective memories. The Syrian conflict has quickly become a particularly harsh example of this.
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Forced displacement -- defined as the displacement of refugees and internally displaced persons due to violence -- has reached an unprecedented scale and global attention during the past few years, particularly in the aftermath of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2011 and the European Union's migration crisis in 2015.
... See More + As this plight gained momentum, economics found itself unprepared to answer the basic questions surrounding refugees and internally displaced persons. Few economists or institutions were working on forced displacement. Economic theory or empirics had little to offer in articles published in journals. Data were scarce, unreliable, or inaccessible. Can economics rise to the challenge? Is the economics of forced displacement different from neoclassical economics? Can off-the-shelves models be used to study forced displaced populations? What is missing to do the economics of forced displacement? What are the data constraints that limit economists in this work? This paper provides a first nontechnical introduction to these topics. The paper argues that the modeling of utility, choice, risk, and information in a short-term setting is the key to address the problem. Neoclassical economics lacks some of the theoretical ingredients that are needed, but recent developments in game theory, neuroeconomics, and behavioral economics have opened new horizons that make the task of modeling forced displacement within reach. Empirics is clearly limited by the scarcity of quality data, but an example shows how welfare economists can start working with existing data. Economists have no excuse to maintain the status quo and should get on with the work on forced displacement.
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This economy profile presents the Doing Business indicators for Syrian Arab Republic. To allow useful comparison, it also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator.
... See More + Doing Business 2017 is the 14th in a series of annual reports investigating the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business; for 2016 Syrian Arab Republic ranks 172. Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2017 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. The indicators are used to analyze economic outcomes and identify what reforms have worked, where and why. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2016 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2015).
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The estimated duration of forced displacement situations is a key parameter in defining an adequate response to the crisis. Where the crisis is short, humanitarian aid may suffice; when it lasts, development interventions are required.
... See More + Using data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, this paper proposes propose a new approach to estimate the mean and median durations of exile, and their variations over time. The analysis finds that people who were refugees at the end of 2015 have been in exile for an average duration of 10.3 years and a median duration of 4 years; the average duration of exile has varied between 10 and 15 years since the late 1990s. The number of people who are in protracted situations (over five years) has been steady at 5 million to 7 million since the mid-1990s, and currently stands at 6.6 million. For those people, the average duration of exile is as long as 21.2 years. All these estimates are very sensitive to two situations: Afghanistan, where the crisis has been ongoing since 1979 and increases all averages, and the Syrian Arab Republic, which is relatively recent and lowers the averages.
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The Syrian crisis has devastated the country and set it back decades in terms of development. The Syria Information and Research Initiative (SIRI) was designed to respond to the main challenges represented by the Syrian conflict and offer an innovative solution to the problem of coordinating humanitarian and developmental efforts across World Bank Group (WBG) and other development partners.
... See More + As part of this initiative, a damage assessment was conducted in the Syrian city of Dar’a. Following this assessment the WorldBank’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) regional team requested GFDRR support to conduct a damage and needs assessment for six Syrian cities. The objective of this assessment was to estimate the effects of the crisis on the population, infrastructure, and service delivery,and understand the preliminary recovery needs.
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This issue includes the following headings: Measuring Financial Inclusion around the World; A New Global Count of the Extreme Poor; Economic Effects of the Syrian War and the Spread of ISIS; Identifying and Spurring High-Growth Entrepreneurship; How Syrian Refugees Have Affected the Turkish Labor Market; Uncompetitive Devaluations?
... See More + ; Top 35 Policy Research Working Papers of 2015
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In recent years, Turkey has been host to more than two million Syrians seeking refuge. Initially concentrated in the southeastern regions, these refugees now reside throughout the country.
... See More + There are many questions from policy makers regarding the impact of the population of Syrians Under Temporary Protection on the host community. This paper examines the impact of migrants on regional host communities from a poverty perspective. The paper does not find any negative impacts on poverty for the host community from the increasing population of Syrians Under Temporary Protection as of 2013, despite the high poverty rates experienced among the recent migrants.
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As June 20th marked World Refugee Day, the global count of registered refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) has reached the highest level since Second World War, with a combined figure of over 50 million people (13 million refugees and 38 million IDPs).
... See More + In addition to their humanitarian dimensions, refugee and IDP crises reflect development failures that are not easily remedied. The average time that a person spends as a refugee is 17 years. Unless given the opportunity to lead a ‘normal’ life, generations of refugees in prolonged exile experience frustration and impoverishment. This marginalization generates loss of skills, lowers self-confidence, and hampers the capacity of a population to rebound from shocks. This report builds on the work carried out in Jordan and Lebanon in 2013 and 2014 and expands it to produce a comprehensive welfare, poverty, and vulnerability assessment of refugees in the context of the Syrian crisis. This is the first collaboration of its kind for both the World Bank and the UNHCR and it was made possible by an unprecedented data-sharing agreement between the two institutions as well as by the close collaboration between the two institutions at headquarters and field level. This assessment can inform policy design to improve the well-being of refugees and mitigate the crisis’ impact on hosting communities. It can also inform the development of new strategies to assist refugees, bridging the historical divide between humanitarian and developmental assistance.
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This economy profile for Doing Business 2016 presents the 11 Doing Business indicators for Syrian Arab Republic. To allow for useful comparison, the profile also provides data for other selected economies (comparator economies) for each indicator.
... See More + Doing Business 2016 is the 13th edition in a series of annual reports measuring the regulations that enhance business activity and those that constrain it. Economies are ranked on their ease of doing business; for 2015 Syrian Arab Republic ranks 175. A high ease of doing business ranking means the regulatory environment is more conducive to the starting and operation of a local firm. Doing Business presents quantitative indicators on business regulations and the protection of property rights that can be compared across 189 economies from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and over time. Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period from January to December 2014).
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This Country Data Report summarizes the data from the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) project for Syrian Arab Republic. The WGI report six aggregate governance indicators for over 200 countries and territories over the period 1996-2014, covering: i) voice and accountability, ii) political stability and absence of violence, terrorism, iii) government effectiveness, iv) regulatory quality, v) rule of law, and vi) control of corruption.
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Currently 2.5 million Syrians fleeing war have found refuge in Turkey, making it the largest refugee-hosting country worldwide. This paper combines newly available data on the distribution of Syrian refugees across Turkey and the Turkish Labour Force Survey to assess their labor market impact.
... See More + Syrian refugees are overwhelmingly employed informally, since they were not issued work permits, making their arrival a well-defined supply shock to informal labor. Consistent with economic theory our instrumental variable estimates, which also control for distance from the Turkish-Syrian border, suggest large-scale displacement of natives in the informal sector. At the same time, consistent with occupational upgrading, there are increases in formal employment for the Turkish - though only for men without completed high school education. Women and the high-skilled are not in a good position to take advantage of lower cost informal labor. The low educated and women experience net displacement from the labor market and, together with those in the informal sector, declining earning opportunities.
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The Kurdistan Region of the Republic of Iraq (KRI) is a constitutionally recognized semiautonomous region in northern Iraq with a population of 5.1 million (2012 estimate).
... See More + Its government (the KRG), based in Erbil, has the right, under the Iraqi constitution of 2005, to exercise legislative, executive, and judicial powers according to the constitution, except in what is listed therein as exclusive powers of the federal authorities. This ESIA report is organized in three chapters: (1) the macro fiscal impact of the crises, (2) the social development impact of the crises, and (3) the infrastructure impact of the crises. Under the macro fiscal impact of the crises, macroeconomic and fiscal implications are analyzed with a focus impact on trade in goods and services, the private sector, and financial services. The social development impact of the crises identified impact and stabilization costs in the health and education sectors, as well as for food security and agricultural livelihood, poverty and welfare, social assistance and labor, housing and shelter, and social cohesion and citizen security. The final chapter on the impact of the conflicts on infrastructure focuses on water and sanitation, solid waste management, and the energy and transportation sectors.
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The devastating civil war in Syria is arguably one of the major civil conflicts in recent times. The conflict started with protests in March 2011 and soon after escalated to a violent internal war with no end in sight to this date.
... See More + The conflict has by the end of 2014 caused well in excess of 150,000 fatalities, and 6 million internally displaced people (UN), and led 3 million refugees to move out of the country (UNHCR). Beyond the human tragedy, the conflict has disrupted the functioning of the economy in many ways. It has destroyed infrastructure, prevented children from going to school, closed factories and deterred investments and trade. The economic effects of the war extend beyond the country’s borders affecting also the neighboring countries. In particular trade is one of the main channels through which the effects of the crisis are transmitted to neighboring countries. For example, the demand for goods and services in Syria is likely to have fallen thus affecting the many exporters to Syria in neighboring countries. Moreover, to the extent that Syria has become harder to cross, the war may have made trade through Syria more difficult. At the same time producers in neighboring countries may have replaced Syrian producers in Syria and in other markets as their productive assets in Syria were destroyed. This report examines the effects of the Syrian war on the Lebanese economy via one of the most important channels through which the economic impact of the war occurs, i.e. the trade channel. In doing so, it partly updates and extends the previous economic assessment of World Bank (2013b) carried out last year. Focusing specifically on trade allows us to examine in more depth the trade effects than that report was able to do. Indeed, we go beyond the effects on aggregate and sectoral imports and exports to also examine the effects on exports at firms’ level, comparing the effects in Lebanon with those in other neighboring countries, including Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.
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The Syrian war and the subsequent emergence and spread of the Islamic State (ISIS) have transformed the Levant in ways one could not have imagined prior to 2011.
... See More + As the numbers of dead and of refugees and internally displaced kept climbing, and as families were torn apart and neighborhoods were turned into war zones, economies slumped and regional economic ties broke down. The shock of these events, henceforth referred to as the Levant conflict or war, has changed the region in profound ways, yet there are no systematic evaluations of its economic impact. Our objective was to address this gap and quantify both the direct and indirect economic effects of the war on the countries in the greater Levant--Turkey, the Syrian Arab Republic, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and the Arab Republic of Egypt. It is important to note that the analysis in our paper does not factor in several types of costs. The authors do not assess the cost of delivering basic services to refugees in receiving countries; these costs could be substantial for Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. The costs of replenishing depleted human and physical capital in Syria will also be sizable. The authors also ignore important dynamic investment-growth links that may amplify the effects discussed here.
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